Christgau's Consumer Guide

In which the one-time nay-sayer gets back to the good stuff--all
things are relative, after all.

BANANARAMA (London) The girl-group version of Tony Swain
and Steve Jolley's black harmony trio, Imagination, Bananarama suffer
from Swain-Jolley's characteristically detached mix, which sounds
dreamy when Leee Johns is coming on and untouchably dreamlike when
these lucky lasses blend their voices in song. They also suffer from
the songs, which despite their solid hooks don't give you much to grab
onto either. B MINUS

EEK-A-MOUSE: Assassinator (RAS) What kind of artist
interprets the legend of Tarzan to the tune of "Wimoweh" immediately
after outlining his "Triple Love" life just so he can revel in "en"
rhymes("ten," "den,", "lend," "bend," "them," "Ardenne," "Hughenden,"
"Gwen," "Jen," "Karen," "they even make love with my best friend Ken,"
and of course the literal nonsense "lah-den")? A major eccentric who
makes most of those who cultivate that image look like self-serving
twits, that's who. Also an eccentric whose first three songs here
start with death by gunfire. B PLUS

EEK-A-MOUSE: Mouseketeer (Greensleeves) Prolific and
then some, he's a little less consistent on this album than on its
immediate competitor, and since there are no printed lyrics I'll
probably never know what the anorexic was doing at Reggae
Sunsplash. But the hot pressing and dubbed-up Henry Junjo Lawes
production do compensate for his tendency to set all his songpoems to
the same melody, leading off with his account of Queen Elizabeth's
unscheduled audience and climaxing with an explanation (?) of how he
got his name betting the horses. B PLUS

EEK-A-MOUSE/MICHIGAN & SMILEY: Live at Reggae Sunsplash
(Sunsplash) Michigan & Smiley are the Statler Brothers of
toasting, but this 1982 performance is where the mighty Mouse
transcended the novelty pigeonhole. His delight in the comic highs and
lows of his range and the syllabic adaptability of his tongue and
palate are even more vivid live than in the studio, and two of the
songs here, including the quietly devastating "Neutron Bomb," aren't
on any of his five other U.S.-release albums (still tops: 1983's
The Mouse and the Man). B
[Later]

THE GO-GO'S: Talk Show (I.R.S.) Pop is such a plastic
concept that to call this a pop comeback just confuses things--with
its clean, bold, Martin Rushent sound and confident basic
chopswomanship, it shares less with Beauty and the Beat than
with, oh, Sports (and less than Bananarama does,
too). In other words, it's an AOR move (with top-forty goals
assumed). Lyrically, it represents a retreat--no place for sly
subcultural anthems among these straightforward love songs (really
relationship songs), which while sensible enough are never acute or
visionary (or thematically consistent/complementary). And having
peeled away several layers of resistance, I find the record
thrilling. Its expressive enthusiasm gives me the same good feeling I
used to get from their musical godmothers in Fanny--a sense of
possibility that might touch women who are turned off by more explicit
politics, and that these women are strong enough to put into
practice. A MINUS

NONA HENDRYX: The Art of Defense (RCA Victor) Nona earns
her loyal insider support. She's honest; she cares about the right
music and the right issues in the right way. But she just isn't as
talented as you wish she was, and on this follow-up her
undifferentiated melodies come back to haunt her. Her singing is
surprisingly careful. Material's groove surprisingly careful,
Material's groove surprisingly straight-ahead, and I can guess
why--everybody involved knew how thin the ice was. C PLUS

INDEEP: Pajama Party Time (Becket) I took a deep breath
when I noticed that the raunchy vocal duo who'd fronted the greatest
sleeper album in disco history was down to Rose Marie Ramsey, not the
raunchier of the two. And you know, I never did exhale. No DJ will
save this one. C PLUS

KING CRIMSON: Three of a Perfect Pair (Warner Bros.)
Unburdened by any natural predisposition to play it again, I'm an
unusually unbiased judge: side two again demonstrates Robert Fripp's
rare if impractical gift for sustained instrumental composition in a
rock context. Having expended many fruitless hours trying to
appreciate Adrian Belew's two solo albums, I'm an unusually qualified
judge: side one again demonstrates that the guy neither sings nor
writes like a front man. B MINUS

HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS: Sports (Chrysalis) You said it,
the man's an utter cornball, but on this album I simply succumb to the
stupid pleasures of his big fat rockcraft. Even though I know it isn't
the "same old back beat" that keeps rock and roll alive, but rather
musicians brave or bored enough to fuck with it, something same-old
has me grunting with pleasure at that song every time I let down my
guard. No guard required: "I Want a New Drug" (recreational), "Bad Is
Bad" (bad), and "Walking on a Thin Line" (when are Vietnam Veterans
Against the War putting together their compilation
album?). B PLUS

THE LYRES: On Fyre (Ace of Hearts) Just like their
fellow neotraditionalists in rockabilly and r&b, these pillars of
garage principle set themselves the nearly impossible task of
substituting magic for the real thing every track out. As the best of
such bands so often do, they get off on a rousing start, in this case
by marshalling their two best originals, which they keep going with
the help of a couple of covers through all of side one. On side two
they slow down a little, and not only isn't the result magical, it's
barely rhythmic. B

THE MEDITATIONS: Greatest Hits (Shanachie) Usually I
have to let reggae albums grow on me, but the sweet tunes and sweeter
harmonies on this devoted overview made themselves felt
immediately. Problem is, they never reached any deeper--instead I
began to notice the low homily level and nonexistent signature
lead. How greatest? B PLUS

NYBOMA: Doublé Doublé (Rounder) Four eight-minute dance
tracks plunked down into a standard African (also disco) album format,
this features the almost feminine tenor of the leader of Zaire's
Orchestre les Kamalé, but it's made by the guitar parts. The one that
hooks the title track resolves a familiar African contradiction--it's
both the trickiest and the most propulsive thing on the record, and
well worth owning. The rest is at least worth
hearing. B PLUS

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS: Mirror Moves (Columbia) Since
authenticity definitely isn't Richard Butler's métier, I couldn't
bring myself to accuse the honorably crafted Forever Now of
lacking conviction, yet that was how it felt to me, and now I think I
know why. The commitment I missed wasn't to "content," but to a
specific style and hence to craft, honorable or otherwise--Butler was
tired of the Furs' sardonic fake Pistolese. Here he turns his
heartfelt dispassion to an approach that bears the same relation to
Bowieism as the earlier Furs did to punk. His seducerama is in the
manner of an aging matinee idol who isn't quite as famous as he thinks
he is: he sings as if he's known you for years even though you're both
perfectly aware that so far your relationship goes no further than his
offer of a lift back to your place. And if you're feeling detached
enough yourself, you just may take him up on it. B PLUS
[Later]

SAKHILE: Sakhile (Arista/Jive-Afrika) When a black
Johannesburg crossover band split up so they can "grow musically" and
the bassist and sax player come up with a slack Crusaders homage, I
understand--in South Africa that'll pass for progress. Here too,
actually. But here I expect people to know better--especially record
executives. C PLUS

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Born in the U.S.A. (Columbia) I wouldn't
be surprised if this apparent retrenchment ended up sounding like his
best album to date, and I bet it'll prove his most playable. Even his
compulsive studio habits work for him: the aural vibrancy of the thing
reminds me like nothing in years that what teenagers loved about rock
and roll wasn't that it was catchy or even rhythmic but that it just
plain sounded good. And while Nebraska's one-note vision may be
more left-correct, my instincts (not to mention my leftism) tell me
that this uptempo worldview is truer. Hardly ride-off-into-the-sunset
stuff, at the same time it's low on nostalgia and beautiful
losers. Not counting the title powerhouse, the best songs slip by at
first because their tone is so lifelike: the fast-stepping "Working on
the Highway," which turns out to be about a country road gang:
"Darlington County," which pins down the futility of a macho spree
without undercutting its exuberance; and "Glory Days," which finally
acknowledges that among other things, getting old is a damn good
joke. A
[Later: A+]

10,000 MANIACS: Secrets of the I Ching (Christian
Burial) True enough, these new-wave art-folkies don't sound like
anybody else, including their kissing cousins in R.E.M. Reason one is
Robert Buck on "principal guitars devices," all delightful space
effects and airily elliptical hooks. But reason two is Natalie
Merchant and her equally airy "voice." Not only does Natalie inflect
the English language as if she grew up speaking some Polynesian
tongue, but she writes lyrics to match, lyrics which from the crib
sheet I'd adjudge the most sophomoric poetry-of-pretension to hit pop
music since lysergic acid was in flower. Random stanza: "Patrons in
attendance/To disarm a common myth/Homage paid to the victor of
immortality/Cloaked in bold tones." Jesus. B MINUS

THE THOMPSON TWINS: Into the Gap (Arista) No longer
saddled with one of the most vacant art reputations in the history of
hype, this decidedly unavant unfunk trio are free to pursue the
airhead pop they were born to, and first try they've scored a natural:
"Hold Me Now" is a classic on chord changes alone, i.e., even though
Tom Bailey sings it. Nothing else here approaches its heart-tugging
mastery, but the album remains lightly creditable through the
title-cut chinoiserie which opens side two. After that, as Alannah
Currie herself puts it, who can stop the rain? B MINUS

TRACEY ULLMAN: You Broke My Heart in 17 Places (MCA)
Unlike most of her cocharting cofemales, Ullman has undertaken a
conscious genre exercise--she plays girl-group tradition for naive if
not dumb passivity. The songs new and old are tuneful and right, the
production exquisitely not-quite-schlocky, but just-compare her
"Bobby's Girl" to Marcie Blaine's original--Ullman sings with too much
force and skill to make the conceit convincing. On the other hand,
it's probably her musical conscience that saves the project from
unmitigated "ironic" condescension. "They Don't Know" did hit at face
value, after all. B PLUS

VIOLENT FEMMES: Hallowed Ground (Slash) First time out
they sounded so original musically that I made it a spiritual exercise
to forgive Gordon Gano his bad personality. But everything you might
hum along with on the sequel was invented generations ago by better
men than he. And though "Black Girls" may not be racist (or
"faggot"-baiting), it takes a great deal of petulant delight in daring
you to call it a name. Then again, maybe it is
racist. C PLUS

THE WEATHER GIRLS: Success (Columbia) Those who find
"It's Raining Men" suspiciously campy will be doubly offended to hear
producer-songwriter Paul Jabara steer his reformed gospel singers into
praise of the Anvil and edible men. Me, I think it's the ultimate gay
disco song, four hefty-voiced black female survivors set loose on what
is much more a gay than a female fantasy, and I love it--for its humor
and for its uncompromising extravagance, from lyric to singing to
orchestration to arrangement to beat. I tolerate the crass moments on
this second long-playing contextualization because five of its six
cuts make me laugh. B PLUS

Additional Consumer News

As breaking becomes the biggest thing since Pac-Man, even in
Americaphobic Britannia, a certain thinning out seems inevitable, but
so far all that means is that many of the best rap 12-inches qualify
as novelty records. The best is still Run-D.M.C.'s "Rock Box"
(Profile), with its precedent-setting Eddie Martinez guitar. "Hey
D.J." (Island) sees the World's Famous Supreme Team, who always struck
me as rather wack with magic-man Trevor Horn, doing just fine with
producer Stephen Hague (Malc gets his usual lyric credit of
course). Newcleus's "Jam on It" (Sunnyview) mixes a young slick-style
M.C. with smurf voices going "wicki-wicki-wicki" and a loping Jonathan
Fearing track. The Disco 3's "Fat Boys" (Sutra) candidly discusses
obesity over the sound effects of the Human Beat Box, who (not which)
should send technophobes into their death throes. Also of note are
U.T.F.O.'s "Beats and Rhymes" (Select), in which a verse in pig Latin
underlines an educated synthesis, and Hassan & 7-11's "City Life"
(Easy Street), a going-out guide to Newark.